Category Archives: Google

Google will pay $392m to 40 states in largest ever US privacy settlement

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Case is a historic win for consumers after an investigation found the tech company tracked users’ location even after they opted out

Google has agreed to a $391.5m settlement with 40 states to resolve an investigation into how the company tracked users’ locations, state attorneys general announced on Monday.

The states’ investigation was sparked by a 2018 Associated Press story, which found that Google continued to track people’s location data even after they opted out of such tracking by disabling a feature the company called “location history”.

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Australia’s consumer watchdog calls for new laws to stop scams and rein in anti-competitive behaviour online

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ACCC report says digital platforms expose users and businesses to ‘harms’ as it pushes for overhaul

Australia’s competition regulator has run out of patience with digital platforms such as Google and Facebook and has recommended new laws to clamp down on scams, address consumer complaints and rein in anti-competitive behaviour.

Releasing its fifth progress report on digital platforms since it began an inquiry in 2017, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has called for industry-specific legislation, saying it has identified “widespread, entrenched and systematic” consumer and competition “harms”.

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Texas sues Google for allegedly using people’s faces and voices without consent

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Google collected biometric data ‘from innumerable Texans’ and used faces and voices to serve commercial ends, complaint says

Texas is suing tech giant Google for allegedly collecting biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining proper consent, the attorney general’s office said in a statement on Thursday.

In its complaint, Texas says that companies operating in the state have been barred for more than a decade from collecting people’s faces, voices or other biometric data without advanced, informed consent.

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Federal election advertising blackout period should be changed or abolished, inquiry hears

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As number of prepoll votes rise, rule has become redundant and may also encourage misinformation, TV broadcasters and social media groups say

Groups representing TV broadcasters and social media companies have called to change or abolish the advertising “blackout period” before federal elections, claiming the measure is outdated and could even allow for harmful political misinformation to flourish.

Free TV Australia, the peak body for commercial free-to-air-broadcasters, told a parliamentary inquiry into the May election on Tuesday that the blackout period, which prevents radio and TV stations from broadcasting election ads from the Wednesday night before the election, was outdated.

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French tax officials use AI to spot 20,000 undeclared pools

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Scheme to be extended across the country after trial in nine departments led to extra €10m in tax receipts

French tax authorities using AI software have found thousands of undeclared private swimming pools, landing the owners with bills totalling about €10m.

The system, developed by Google and Capgemini, can identify pools on aerial images and cross-checks them with land registry databases. Launched as an experiment a year ago in nine French departments, it has uncovered 20,356 pools, the tax office said on Monday, and will be extended across the country.

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Saudi snitching app appears to have been used against jailed Leeds student

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‘Terrifying tool’ under scrutiny as Salma al-Shehab’s tweets suggest widely available phone app was used to report her

The Saudi woman who was sentenced to 34 years in prison for a tweet appears to have been denounced to Saudi authorities through a crime-reporting app that users in the kingdom can download to Apple and Android phones.

A review of Leeds PhD student Salma al-Shehab’s tweets and interactions shows she was messaged by a person using a Saudi account on 15 November, 2020 after she posted a mildly critical tweet in response to a Saudi government post about a new public transportation contract.

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Google earnings signal company weathering slowdown better than expected

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Parent company Alphabet reports second-quarter revenue of $69.69bn, 13% higher than a year ago

Alphabet only narrowly missed estimates for its quarterly revenue on Tuesday, a sign the tech giant may weather an industry-wide slowdown better than expected.

Alphabet reported second-quarter revenue of $69.69bn, 13% higher than same period a year ago and nearly in line with the average expectation of $69.88bn among investment researchers tracked by Refinitiv.

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Google fires software engineer who claims AI chatbot is sentient

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Company said Blake Lemoine violated Google policies and that his claims were ‘wholly unfounded’

Google has dismissed a senior software engineer who claimed the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot LaMDA was a self-aware person.

Google, which placed software engineer Blake Lemoine on leave last month, said he had violated company policies and that it found his claims on LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) to be “wholly unfounded”.

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Google to be banned in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions

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Leader of self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic claims search engine is promoting ‘terrorism and violence against all Russians’

Google’s search engine is to be banned in the occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk after pro-Russian authorities there accused the US tech giant of promoting “terrorism and violence against all Russians”.

In a statement posted to the social messaging service Telegram, Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said: “The inhuman propaganda of Ukraine and the west has long crossed all boundaries. There is a real persecution of Russians, the imposition of lies and disinformation.”

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Tech company earnings reports expected to bring a flush of bad news

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Some US firms have announced hiring slowdowns and layoffs in recent weeks amid fears of recession

As top tech companies prepare to release their quarterly earnings reports starting next week, investors are bracing for bad news.

Several US tech companies have announced hiring slowdowns and layoffs in recent weeks, and the difficulties are expected to continue. “It’s not a great time for tech in general,” said Paul Verna, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, a market analysis firm. “There is no question that companies are going to be spending less, cutting back budgets, and maybe implementing hiring freezes. None of that is good news for the next quarter.”

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Tech companies in spotlight as US abortion ruling sparks privacy threat

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Google has acted amid fears police could use location and other data to prosecute those seeking care

In the wake of the US supreme court’s decision to end women’s constitutional right to abortion, some tech companies are moving to close loopholes that allow personal data brokers to monitor and sell information amid fears that mobile apps could be used by US states to police abortion restrictions.

Google said on Friday it would automatically delete records of user visits to sensitive locations, including abortion clinics. Privacy researchers as well as women’s rights groups welcomed the move, having warned that apps used for period tracking, pregnancy and family planning could be used to prosecute those seeking reproductive care.

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Google will delete location history data for abortion clinic visits

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The company said that sensitive places including fertility centers, clinics and addiction treatment facilities will be erased

Alphabet will delete location data showing when users visit an abortion clinic, the online search company said on Friday, after concern that a digital trail could inform law enforcement if an individual terminates a pregnancy illegally.

As state laws limiting abortions set in after the US supreme court decided last month that they are no longer guaranteed by the constitution, the technology industry has fretted police could obtain warrants for customers’ search history, geolocation and other information revealing pregnancy plans.

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Australian defamation law never needed Morrison’s ‘anti-trolling’ legislation

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Experts say rulings in actions involving John Barilaro and PRGuy17 demonstrate existing law already achieves aims of former government’s proposed changes

Two rulings in separate defamation cases – one involving John Barilaro, and the other targeting a pro-Labor Twitter account – show how Australia’s current laws already allow victims of online abuse to take their fight to court and win.

Google last week was ordered to pay Barilaro, the former New South Wales deputy premier, more than $700,000 over a series of “racist” and “abusive” videos published on YouTube channel Friendlyjordies.

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Friendlyjordies: John Barilaro to be paid $715,000 by Google over YouTube videos

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Tech giant and comedian Jordan Shanks may face contempt of court charges over videos published during trial

Google has been ordered to pay former New South Wales deputy premier John Barilaro more than $700,000 over a series of “racist” and “abusive” videos published on YouTube channel Friendlyjordies.

On Monday, federal court justice Stephen Rares ruled that Barilaro had been left “traumatised” by a campaign of “relentless cyberbullying” by comedian Jordan Shanks, who uses the nom de plume Friendlyjordies

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UK watchdog will have power to impose huge fines on big tech firms

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According to the government, Digital Markets Unit will protect small businesses and consumers

A new tech watchdog will be given the power to impose multibillion-pound fines on major firms such as Google and Facebook if they breach rules designed to protect consumers and businesses.

The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will protect small businesses from predatory practices and will give consumers greater control over how their data is used, the government said.

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Alphabet revenue falls short as YouTube and TikTok battle for users

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Supply issues, inflation and war in Ukraine fuel Google parent company’s first-quarter struggles

Alphabet’s first quarter revenue fell below analysts’ expectations on Tuesday, as the company confronts supply chain problems, inflation concerns, and fallout from the war in Ukraine.

In its quarterly earnings report, Google’s parent company said it had made a quarterly profit of $16.436bn, or $24.62 per share, missing expectations of $25.76 per share.

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EU agrees sweeping new digital rules in effort to curb big tech’s power

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Digital Markets Act seeks to prevent the likes of Google and Facebook parent company Meta from dominating digital markets

The European Union reached an agreement on landmark digital rules to rein in online “gatekeepers” such as Google and Facebook’s parent company, Meta.

EU officials agreed late on Thursday on wording for the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, part of a long-awaited overhaul of digital regulations with major implications for the global tech market. The act, which still needs other approvals, seeks to prevent the biggest of tech firms from dominating digital markets through the threat of fines or even the possibility of a company breakup.

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Digital code of conduct fails to stop all harms of misinformation, Acma warns

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Need for damage to be serious and imminent before Facebook and Google take action means ‘chronic’ problems build, watchdog says – citing mistrust of vaccines

The code of conduct adopted by digital platforms, including Facebook and Google, is “too narrow” to prevent all the harms of misinformation and disinformation, Australia’s media regulator has warned.

The requirement that harm from social media posts must be both “serious” and “imminent” before tech companies take action has allowed longer term “chronic harms” including vaccine misinformation and the erosion of democracy, according to the Australian Communication and Media Authority.

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Malaysian government’s ‘gay conversion’ app pulled by Google Play

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App claimed that it could help LGBT+ people ‘return to nature’ but the tech company has now made it unavailable for downloads

An app produced by the Malaysian government that promised to help the LGBTI community “return to nature” has been removed from the Google Play store, after it was found to be in breach of the platform’s guidelines.

The app was first released in July 2016, but attracted fresh attention after it was shared on Twitter by the Malaysian government’s Islamic development department. It claimed the app would enable LGBTI people to return to a state of nature or purity, and that it included an e-book detailing the experience of a gay man who “abandoned homosexual behaviour” during Ramadan.

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YouTube blocks Russian state-funded media channels globally

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The Google-owned platform said the invasion of Ukraine fell under its violent events policy and violating material would be removed

YouTube announced on Friday that it had begun blocking access globally to channels associated with Russian state-funded media, citing a policy barring content that denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events.

The video platform had previously blocked the channels, specifically those of Russia Today and Sputnik, across Europe.

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